Enhance Your Business Writing Skills Using These Nine Effortless Tips

Written by: Mary Walton

Whether you’re an avid writer or you haven’t put pen on paper in years, writing is an essential part of business nowadays, and it cannot be avoided. By enhancing your skills, you’ll be able to write so much more effectively, minimizing the risk of miscommunication while bettering yourself as a professional.

Today, I’ll explore nine ways to achieve these improvements.

1. Define Your Audience

The first thing you’ll want to do is to define the audience that you’re writing to. You need to do this with every piece of content you sit down to write.

For example, if you’re writing an email, simply consider who you’re writing to. It could be your boss, a customer or even a colleague. Using this information, you’ll be able to instantly know exactly what format, what language and what structure you should be using.

2. Be Accurate

The thing about business writing is that you have to be as accurate as possible. If the report you’re writing up contains a tonne of information including sales statistics, figures and quotes, it’s vital you fact check these to ensure accuracy. Otherwise you could be creating a lot of problems.

Imagine if a quote for a service to a customer was $400. If you accidentally wrote $4000 but didn’t check, you could be costing your company a lot of business.

3. Use the Correct Tone

There are a lot of different ways you can communicate people simply by changing the words that you’re using. If you’re emailing a colleague, it may be acceptable to use a friendly and informal tone. However, if you’re emailing your boss, you may need to be strictly professional.

Likewise, if you’re writing on behalf of your business, it’s essential that you match your writing style to your business’s brand and tone of voice.

4. Be Open-Minded

Instead of sitting down thinking ‘man, I hate writing so much.’ Instead, approach every new piece of writing that you create with an open mind. This will help to improve your writing flow as well as making it seem like less of a chore.

“Many people haven’t written anything properly since their school or college days, and it’s easy to fall into the habit of quickly sending off emails and messages without even thinking. However, by taking your time and learning to love writing, you can easily fall in love with it which will naturally improve your writing skills and talents.”

5. Keep Things Simple

Most people when reading something from a business, such as a leaflet or an email, will simply skim read the text so they can draw the information they need from it. This relates to other businesses and customers alike.

When writing for a business purpose, keep things simple, easy to read and direct to the point.

7. Ensure You’ve Communicated Your Message

There’s nothing worse than reading something, getting to the end and realizing the initial reason you read the document hasn’t been given to you. Say you’re writing an email. Always ensure that your subject line has been answered with the email. If a customer has asked for a quote, ensure that all the information they need is present.

8. Edit and Revise

As mentioned in the tools list above, the chances are that you won’t get things right the first time. Even simple errors are easily overlooked by mistake. When writing for a business purpose, always ensure that you reread your work before you send it. Depending on the purpose of the content, it may be worth triple checking it.

9. Practice

As with any skill in life, the key to success is practice. It could take years to become a fluent master of writing, but without practicing, you’re never going to get there. One of the best ways to improve your skills is by writing in your free-time or reading a variety of books as a hobby.